In the WWII analogy, the Republicans are the Stormtroopers nabbing Jews in the night, and the Democrats are the Polish people standing around doing nothing while this happens. It's not that they're evil people deep down in their hearts, but you gotta ask: what they hell are they doing?

In the WWII analogy, the Republicans are the Stormtroopers nabbing Jews in the night, and the Democrats are the Polish people standing around doing nothing while this happens. It's not that they're evil people deep down in their hearts, but you gotta ask: what they hell are they doing?

Godwin's Law invoked!

Well, right now, they're unanimously voting against things like the tax reform bill and the ACA repeal. Shame on them for lacking the numbers, I guess.

Or maybe, shame on Americans for voting against them in the last mid-terms, allowing for a 100% GOP-controlled government. Maybe let's not absolve voters of their responsibility, since it's a democracy after all. Which is why I've been saying y'all* deserve Trump and the GOP.

* #notAllAmericans I know. If you consistently vote Dem you have my sympathy. but only then.

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Von Cichlid wrote:

I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:

a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

We also can't absolve party politics, either. Here, and in the US, and across the globe, political parties are becoming better at being powerful corporations -- and that should be a major concern for all of us. Political parties serve a singular, selfish purpose - to get in power and stay in power - and the people who run them all try to strategize the best way to achieve that. In the modern political climate that means four things. First, if you're opposition you oppose everything that the governing party does. You don't want to give them victories, even if you agree with them. Second, if you're governing you oppose everything that the opposition does, while also trying to make it seem to voters that "you're on the right side of history" (whatever that might mean for your base voters/largest donors). Third, you do whatever you can to institutionalize your power; you take active steps to manipulate the system so to make it harder for the opposition to take control AND you take actions to bite them in the ass when you expect them to take over. Lastly, you use whatever powers are available to you to shut down dissension within the ranks, in order to appear unified. You do this in order to foster and grow the "us vs. them" mentality so that voters will vote for you.

A lot of this is dependent upon money, but has also gotten worse with improvements in technology, the media, and the use of business tactics. You throw as much money as possible at campaigns and hire the best marketers, advertisers, and public relations firms that money can buy, so as to better manipulate voters. You actively shut out candidates that don't exactly fit with the vision of your party by refusing to help them, and instead spend excess money on campaigns to help candidates you do like. This makes it practically impossible for a "nobody" to run for politics and win without the support of a party; increasingly campaigns have grown more and more expensive as political parties have vested more money into them. It's like the Olympics - as costs have gotten higher with each subsequent Olympics, the less likely cities will be able to host them. It's no different in politics. You also use money, and technology, and the media to shut down disagreement within the party; it's now so easy to get rid of someone who doesn't fit, or to remind the people within the party that disagreement means they wont have any say in the party anymore - and might not be supported for re-election. Loyalty matters above anything else, no matter how many times politicians themselves may claim or believe they "represent their constituents." And so many genuinely believe that.

It's easy to ignore the role political parties have played in all of this - and not just the public and politicians - because the people behind them are often nameless or not well known. Having seen the way political parties work from the inside, it's cultish. And it's disturbing because the people within them can stick around forever, while the politiicans are disposable. There really isn't any "democracy" so long as you have political parties acting as corporations. And we play right into their hands.

This is only brain-dead garbage if one lacks the mental power to acknowledge that two things can both be bad while nonetheless being far from equivalent.

Please. Pretty much the only reason anyone would say "both sides are bad" in discussions like these are to make equivalences in the first place, which is why it's so annoying to see it come up over and over again. Notice how it's always "both sides are bad" and never "Dems have fucked up sometimes, but holy shit the damage the GOP has done is out of this world".

You're conflating the soundness of an idea with the propriety of its expression. Just because it annoys you, perhaps rightly, does not make it false. Misleading, sure. False, no -- as you yourself acknowledged, I believe.

EDIT: and it's only misleading among those who are disposed to make certain inferences, but those inferences are the results of unsubtle thinking (e.g. that both being bad beans both are equivalent). I prefer to stay within subtle thought, since it allows us to be more careful and precise. But I acknowledge that if it is carelessly imported into public discourse, it will mislead. Fine. This is, so far, about as public as I get -- and I'm mainly just trying to highlight certain features of logic. But I will also acknowledge that my frustration with the Democrats (the kind of frustration one can only have when they are hoping for better) may have made me sound like I was trying to make equivalences. Now, perhaps instead, I look like a pedant. Fine.

Derigin, I agree that the rigid and insular nature of political parties is a problem, in that it seeks to enforce unconditional loyalty from the voters. Especially this:

Quote:

"Lastly, you use whatever powers are available to you to shut down dissension within the ranks, in order to appear unified. You do this in order to foster and grow the "us vs. them" mentality so that voters will vote for you."

But I have to disagree with this:

Quote:

Here, and in the US, and across the globe, political parties are becoming better at being powerful corporations

, because it's far from equally severe elsewhere (ie Canada) as it is in the USA. See how the Ontario Conservative leader has been rightly pilloried for his iron-fisted handling of riding nomination contests.Our political parties have nowhere near the same hold on the public's psyche as the American ones do. In the USA, it's normal for someone to say "I'm a Democrat" or "I'm a Republican", and actually be a card-carrying member of the party. That's downright bizarre in Canada, where just my immediate family have voted for 10 different parties, if we're counting federal and provincial parties with the same name as different entities. Yeah we may be an extreme example, but I think in general party-hopping is pretty common here.

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Apteronotus wrote:

Mütiilation. There should be a missing I, not an extra one. Really a missed wordplay opportunity.

My own experiences, both within and outside of political parties here have led me to the conclusion that the way we treat our political parties is not that far off from the way they are treated in the US. Moreover, the way our political parties act is heavily informed by the way the Republicans and Democrats act. Part of the problem is exactly what you state: you have a hardcore base that affirmatively and unequivocally see themselves as supporters of a single party, and you have a large portion of voters in the middle that party hop. It's those people in the middie - in both the US and Canada - that political parties have to control in order to win elections. It's one reason why we consider certain areas of both the US and Canada as "swing states" or "swing regions," and other areas as dominantly "Conservative" or "Liberal" or even "New Democrat." But I've also witnessed the same zealous, cultist behaviour among party supporters here in Canada that exists in the US, too. In a way it's rather sickening.

As for Patrick Brown. He is iron-fisting it, and succeeding, but really isn't being pillored for it. I know two people personally who ran against party-chosen candidates, or the "norm" of the party (which is becoming increasingly social conservative) and lost dramatically due to the support of Patrick Brown's inner circle. And he's leading in the polls right now. And, the other sad thing, is that despite being cheated out of the candidacy by those party-chosen candidates, those two friends will vote for the PCs.

Or maybe, shame on Americans for voting against them in the last mid-terms, allowing for a 100% GOP-controlled government. Maybe let's not absolve voters of their responsibility, since it's a democracy after all. Which is why I've been saying y'all* deserve Trump and the GOP.

* #notAllAmericans I know. If you consistently vote Dem you have my sympathy. but only then.

We have differing views, then. I blame the party for not serving the people better rather than blaming the people for being insufficiently loyal to the party. I'm sure it's very hard for you to imagine why so many people who, in your view, should naturally be total democratic party loyalists don't have enough faith in the party to keep them in power, but that's because you don't live in the US. You only see our politics at the largest level, you don't see, or more importantly, experience the failures of state and local level politics. It's those failures by the democratic party itself which has allowed the republican party to institutionally establish themselves so much that they can consistently maintain power despite being a minority party. The democrats have failed so much that the republicans can now win the presidency and both houses of congress, and most state congresses despite getting far fewer votes. Why did the democratic party allow the republicans to restructure the system this way? Contrary to what derigin says, not all minority parties fight for power tooth and nail. The democrats certainly don't, they phone it in all the time and that's why the republicans consistently only ever face meaningful resistance from themselves. It's not like being out of power means the party apparatchiks are out of a job, they still have work to do and they still have donors who keep the money flowing. All's good for the party.

I actually live and interact with the kinds of people you're blaming for not being the democratic party partisans they "should" be. It's a bunch of poor people in cities and suburbs dealing with unresponsive and insufficient government services, it's the black people who still live in the redlined Troost corridor here in Kansas City. Poor people in this country just don't vote, and it's because a lot of them have been disenfranchised, a lot of them don't have the means to vote, and a lot of them have just been beaten down too much and can't believe anymore that their vote will even matter. In a lot of cases they are completely correct (and a lot of times, even when they vote their votes have been gerrymandered into worthlessness). Democrats in power isn't a panacea for their problems, and the democratic party isn't working to change any of those things that keep them away from the polls. I think it's a pretty callous attitude to sit in judgement, in Canada, and shit on these people for that.

We have differing views, then. I blame the party for not serving the people better rather than blaming the people for being insufficiently loyal to the party.

NOT what I am saying. But the problem with your two-party system is that if you want actual real tangible progress to happen at all, and not things to get worse, you have no choice but to vote against the more harmful of the two parties. And if you fail to do that, well, the shitshow that follows it is pretty much on you.

If the Dems started to push harmful legislation on the level of the GOP where voting for the GOP would somehow be a better alternative, then yeah, it'd be dumb to keep voting Dems. Party loyalty is stupid and I'd never endorse that, but a) your two party system screws you over to begin with (and no, voting for fringe 3rd parties at presidential elections won't help with that, not ever, and you know it) and b) Republicans are the kings and queens of party over country, and will always vote according to party lines, which mean they will keep winning and keep screwing over everyone if Dems and their voters don't mobilize more.

Quote:

It's a bunch of poor people in cities and suburbs dealing with unresponsive and insufficient government services, it's the black people who still live in the redlined Troost corridor here in Kansas City. Poor people in this country just don't vote, and it's because a lot of them have been disenfranchised, a lot of them don't have the means to vote, and a lot of them have just been beaten down too much and can't believe anymore that their vote will even matter. In a lot of cases they are completely correct (and a lot of times, even when they vote their votes have been gerrymandered into worthlessness). Democrats in power isn't a panacea for their problems, and the democratic party isn't working to change any of those things that keep them away from the polls. I think it's a pretty callous attitude to sit in judgement, in Canada, and shit on these people for that.

Gerrymandering and voter disenfranchisement are real problems, I agree. I'm not talking about those voters when I "shit on people", but on those who did have the means and ability to vote, and didn't because "oh, nothing will change" or "both sides are bad so I'll vote for [an even worse] 3rd party!" or "but her emails" or "I'll take a pedophile over a Democrat goshdarnit" or whatever the fuck. And yes, I'll happily sit in judgment of those people, especially for the recent, incredibly high-stake elections.

Also, if your main concerns in life are poverty and unresponsive and insufficient government services, why the FUCK wouldn't you vote to make sure to keep power away from the GOP? Like, fuck.

_________________

Von Cichlid wrote:

I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:

a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

Also, if your main concerns in life are poverty and unresponsive and insufficient government services, why the FUCK wouldn't you vote to make sure to keep power away from the GOP? Like, fuck.

Because the democrats didn't do any better. You really need to understand that today's democrats are not the party of FDR and LBJ. They are the party of Reagan. That's the change that came from Clinton and the New Democrats. The republicans are now the party of Trump. That's the real choice we're talking about.

You said before the good thing about the democrats was the incremental progress they bring. Most of the time they aren't bringing progress at all, rather they bring incrementally what the republicans want to bring immediately.

Not some pity-party in which nitpicked demographics can get their privileged rights,[ while merely giving a few speeches on the problems that impact everyone.

Not sure what that's supposed to mean...

The democrats political strategy, until Bernie, was to pity LGBTQ/Blacks/Hispanics/etc, so that the summation of all their votes (+white people's pity) would give them a victory. Whether transgenders can use a male/female bathroom is entirely irrelevant to a national political decision on who should be the next president. An ambiguous fight about whether Black lives "matter" is a waste of time if only fleeting amounts of action is given to dismantle the private prison system. Advocating for more middle class jobs is paradoxical to the millions of grants of amnesty to illegal immigrants (which businesses love because then they can pay lower wages).

Morrigan wrote:

Quote:

Fuck that, that's why white people quit voting liberal.

That and racism.

Yes, and those people will continue to be racist until the day I die (and I'm only 25). But people in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan did not quite voting liberal this time around because of racism. These are states that have been abandoned by mainstream democrats because- oh gee, they're mostly white, and so to help them would actually take a discussion about universal healthcare/higher taxes for the rich/free college/etc. Or, in michigans case, people would love to see an acknowledgement from mainstream dems that various industries are toxic to our health, but for some reason they can't do it... hm...

My own experiences, both within and outside of political parties here have led me to the conclusion that the way we treat our political parties is not that far off from the way they are treated in the US. Moreover, the way our political parties act is heavily informed by the way the Republicans and Democrats act. Part of the problem is exactly what you state: you have a hardcore base that affirmatively and unequivocally see themselves as supporters of a single party, and you have a large portion of voters in the middle that party hop. It's those people in the middie - in both the US and Canada - that political parties have to control in order to win elections. It's one reason why we consider certain areas of both the US and Canada as "swing states" or "swing regions," and other areas as dominantly "Conservative" or "Liberal" or even "New Democrat." But I've also witnessed the same zealous, cultist behaviour among party supporters here in Canada that exists in the US, too. In a way it's rather sickening.

As for Patrick Brown. He is iron-fisting it, and succeeding, but really isn't being pillored for it. I know two people personally who ran against party-chosen candidates, or the "norm" of the party (which is becoming increasingly social conservative) and lost dramatically due to the support of Patrick Brown's inner circle. And he's leading in the polls right now. And, the other sad thing, is that despite being cheated out of the candidacy by those party-chosen candidates, those two friends will vote for the PCs.

Well I guess you and I just travel in different circles! I know a grand total of two people personally, who could be described as "party loyalists". For all other friends and relatives, "who will you vote for?" is actually a question. That said, it seems like you have some connections and experience with the inside of (at least one) party; so naturally you'd know more folks with that culty attitude compared to more distant observers like myself.

PS Now that I think of it, I live in one of those "safe regions" you mentioned. And I'm continually perplexed at how the low - and declining - level of enthusiasm for the Liberals still turns into a Liberal win every time.

_________________

Apteronotus wrote:

Mütiilation. There should be a missing I, not an extra one. Really a missed wordplay opportunity.

"But the problem with your two-party system is that if you want actual real tangible progress to happen at all, and not things to get worse, you have no choice but to vote against the more harmful of the two parties. And if you fail to do that, well, the shitshow that follows it is pretty much on you."

If people didn't accept this erroneous reasoning, either withholding their votes or voting for acceptable third-party options, then it would become a viable strategy. The two parties only have a duopoly because people are repeatedly told this. But it's just not true.

Oh, but one's vote won't make a difference because the third party won't win? Your vote does not make a difference anyway. "And you know it", to borrow your language. Voting is simply not about making an individual difference -- that justification is not even in the right ballpark here. You'd do better by appealing to something like integrity or duties of participation. But appealing to making a difference in the "every vote matters" sense is totally misguided. Groups of votes matter. And if people spread the word that we should refuse to vote for corporate candidates, for example, then we might find ourselves offered something else. If we accept your submissiveness to the duopoly in our voting, we will always have the duopoly.

“I think Snowden is a terrible threat, I think he’s a terrible traitor, and you know what we used to do in the good old days when we were a strong country — you know what we used to do to traitors, right?” -Donald Trump

"I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt" -Donald Trump

To be clear, I'm not suggesting that Trump is a traitor or that he should face that severe of a punishment... just pointing out the hilarious irony of him sucking the cocks of the intelligence community and then whining about being investigated.

News a bit late, but you all have probably heard that Trump officially acknowledges Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This is a great move I think. Hopefully this will move towards lasting peace over there, but I don't believe the road will be short.

About Jerusalem: Seems to me that where a country chooses to designate its capital, is its own internal administrative decision. For Trump to wade in here is overstepping his bounds.

That's not the point. Israel already regarded Jerusalem as its capital. The issue is whether other countries acknowledge that. The acknowledgement of other countries is relevant when there is a dispute, as with Palestine. What Trump did was not make a decision for Israel, but rather take sides with Israel on a particular point of contention with the Palestinians.

News a bit late, but you all have probably heard that Trump officially acknowledges Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This is a great move I think. Hopefully this will move towards lasting peace over there, but I don't believe the road will be short.

News a bit late, but you all have probably heard that Trump officially acknowledges Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This is a great move I think. Hopefully this will move towards lasting peace over there, but I don't believe the road will be short.

There can be no peace until the Isreali Apartheid ends.

Agreed. And even then, there is such a long history of anger and tensions on both sides that even when apartheid eventually ends, it will take a long time for that rift to heal. I wonder if this is something that can even begin in my life time.

The democrats political strategy, until Bernie, was to pity LGBTQ/Blacks/Hispanics/etc, so that the summation of all their votes (+white people's pity) would give them a victory. Whether transgenders can use a male/female bathroom is entirely irrelevant to a national political decision on who should be the next president. An ambiguous fight about whether Black lives "matter" is a waste of time if only fleeting amounts of action is given to dismantle the private prison system. Advocating for more middle class jobs is paradoxical to the millions of grants of amnesty to illegal immigrants (which businesses love because then they can pay lower wages).

"We can't achieve the ideal now, so trying is worthless" -- and is roughly equivalent to actively screwing people over with actively harmful policy? BS.

Nice of you to utterly throw minorities under the bus though. "White people's pity", what the actual fuck.

Quote:

Yes, and those people will continue to be racist until the day I die (and I'm only 25). But people in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan did not quite voting liberal this time around because of racism.

These are states that have been abandoned by mainstream democrats because- oh gee, they're mostly white, and so to help them would actually take a discussion about universal healthcare/higher taxes for the rich/free college/etc

Like this stuff only affects white people... and like the GOP and Trump actually talk about those things and offer them, instead of constantly trying to make sure they don't happen? What are you even on about?

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Von Cichlid wrote:

I work with plenty of Oriental and Indian persons and we get along pretty good, and some females as well.

Markeri, in 2013 wrote:

a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

There are good arguments against uncontrolled immigration, but I don't see the average anti-immigration trump voter use those arguments. And even if they do a lot of times it's accompanied by this weird "they" are different so "they" shouldn't come here mumbo jumbo. Yeah being against undocumented/uncontrolled immigration doesn't make you racist automatically, but there does seem to be a real big overlap with actual racist views.

Not supporting undocumented immigrants makes you racist apparently. Good to know. Stopped reading the article there.

Wait wait wait, not wanting to deport large swathes of people through a stupidly expensive and invasive auditing process or support paying billions of tax dollars for a big wall that will have almost no impact on illegal immigration means I'm 'supporting undocumented immigrants' now? Because that's sure as hell what you seem to be implying.And you're kidding yourself if you don't think that the rhetoric of the Trump campaign focused far more on the racial aspect of illegal immigrants than the fact they don't have all their papers in check.

There's a difference between "I'm not a fan of illegal immigrants" and "I'm not a fan of Mexicans".

You have to look really hard but it's there.

Oh I know that - though not being a fan of illegal immigrants, to me, shows a lack of empathy and understanding. The best path is one that keeps a reasonable border with a criteria to get in, while also not breaking up families and such shit. The hardline demonization of illegal immigrants perpetuated by Trump and the like - and how can a person be "illegal" anyway, honestly - is just harmful and toxic.

You also can tell a bad argument when only one side is using baseless strawmen like "uncontrolled immigration," which literally nobody is asking for and yet the right typically casts that as the doomsday scenario under left-wing rule.

See, now Democrats say things like "of course being against illegal immigration doesn't make you a racist." Key word there is now. Prior to Trump---eg, prior to actually racist immigration policy proposals being front-and-center in the GOP mainstream---Republicans and some moderate Democrats were called racists for supporting pretty pedestrian things like increasing Border Patrol funding or tamping down on the left version of "but states' rights!" sanctuary laws. For roughly 20-odd years before Trump, anyone who merely wanted existing immigration laws enforced was called a racist.

Empyreal wrote:

how can a person be "illegal" anyway, honestly

So call them criminal migrants then. Or felons.

"Undocumented" is fine for people who didn't get their paperwork in order on time, or who accidentally overstayed a visa. People who smuggled themselves in through a tunnel somewhere are not "undocumented." A person who knowingly and intentionally breaks the law is not "undocumented."

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iamntbatman wrote:

On Friday I passed an important milestone in my teaching career: a student shat himself

FloristOfVampyrism wrote:

That wasn't meant as a k.o. though, he specifically targeted an area of the cerebellum which, if ruptured, renders you a Jehovah's witness indefinitely

I just think you should have some compassion here and there. Not all of them have bad intentions. It should be approached with a level of care.

I'm all for streamlining the process to make one a citizen. I wouldn't know where to start, but I'm sure it could be done.

However, I was talking to one of my friends and she was against illegal immigrants (and she migrated here from China), so I asked for insight. Long story short, she says that she and her family did EVERYTHING correctly and made it right, and the illegals get more benefits. What those benefits are I don't know all of, but she's one of the few liberals I know that are fervently against them.

Not to say she couldn't BE racist (I've known her for maybe a year now and it might not have been revealed), but for Morrigan to just say not liking illegal immigrants is racist is exactly the sorta rhetoric I expect from her at this point.

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Murtal wrote:

In flames became MeloDICK Death Metal

TheDefiniteArticle wrote:

Also hopefully they take it as a sign they're not meant to make more albums.

Everyone says everyone else is getting more benefits than them and that they aren't getting what they deserve while everyone else is getting what is rightfully theirs. Everyone who is fervent on the topic of immigration says exactly these things, though what these benefits are exactly remains a mystery to this day. I suspect that illegals aren't actually riding the gravy train to fun town like they are accused of and that being an illegal immigrant is actually pretty unpleasant and that these benefits are in reality the demons which haunt frustrated and spiteful peoples' minds. Naturally this narrative is propounded by divide and conquer style politicians.

Everyone says everyone else is getting more benefits than them and that they aren't getting what they deserve while everyone else is getting what is rightfully theirs. Everyone who is fervent on the topic of immigration says exactly these things, though what these benefits are exactly remains a mystery to this day. I suspect that illegals aren't actually riding the gravy train to fun town like they are accused of and that being an illegal immigrant is actually pretty unpleasant and that these benefits are in reality the demons which haunt frustrated and spiteful peoples' minds. Naturally this narrative is propounded by divide and conquer style politicians.

Great post and a great observation! They want you to believe that the illegals actually like living 15 to a three bedroom shithole. Nothing could be further from the truth. They do it because they have to to eat. They just don't wallow in their misery like spoiled Americans so everyone automatically believes that is how they like to live. We moan and groan when the WiFi goes out. They are just happy to not be in the third world shithole they came from. We need to have an immigration policy that combines inclusion with serious vetting. But we will never have that because of what John_Sunlight said....divide and conquer style politics. Plus, the corporations that have said politicians in their pockets benefit from having the undocumented in their employs.

The immigration issue is one I'm more sympathetic to for a couple of reasons: (1) my grandparents came over during the time of Nazi rule from Poland. Details for this are fuzzy, and I'd love to delve deeper with my dad's side of the family on this. (2) I think it's important to give immigrants, legal or otherwise, the benefit of the doubt. Why would a mother and her son travel dozens of miles through desert, weeds and tunnels from Mexico to the United States? What is the reason that it is of upmost importance to get over that border? What do they currently fear in their life that illegally crossing into America is the only answer?

Those who know me know I talk about some things very coldly: "this is X, this is Y, that's the law and that's what matters." In the case of immigration, I think it's important to have a conversation around why people come here, and what is happening in their home country that escape is the only answer. I hold there's a worthwhile conversation to be had here.

I think it's long overdue to make all illegal immigrants currently in the country, legal. Let them pay into the system, let them bring their family over for who they're sending money to so they can have the benefits of our system. I live in Georgia man, illegal immigrants are fucking everywhere. All they fucking do is work. That's literally all they do. Sun-up to sun-down, they're fucking working. Working to support themselves and their family. If this is who we're supposed to be worried about, I really think we have more important shit to concern ourselves over.

"We can't achieve the ideal now, so trying is worthless" -- and is roughly equivalent to actively screwing people over with actively harmful policy? BS.

Nice of you to utterly throw minorities under the bus though. "White people's pity", what the actual fuck.

lol I agree liberals generally need to try for the ideal but the ideal isn't exclusively helping particular demographics, but rather everyone (which includes poor racist white people if you want to sweep an election). It's not that I'm throwing minorities under the table either, it's just that democrats literally politicize their problems and make people grieve for them, but then don't do anything to truly address their root causes, which are often non racial and entirely economic. By continuously talking about issues in the context of race and not class, it becomes increasingly more challenging to unite people under common goals. Furthermore, because of this, what the 'ideals' are shared amongst liberals becomes obfuscated when compared to the right wing.

Well that certainly is an interesting poll from the Newsweek article, however keep in mind, the actual poll the article cites states "No other demographic attribute was significant" besides "Identification with the Republican Party", making the actual Newsweek article seem very clickbaity. If it's not significant, then a new poll could completely contradict these results. The second article is too general to make conclusions directly to how people in those states I mentioned feel about race. By saying immigration is a #1 concern, you might be saying that for economic reasons, which is very often the case. That's not to say everyone's this way (especially in light of Trump's then-promised muslim ban), but it often is. Ultimately, I'm unconvinced that there's enough racial motivation in said states to make Trump take a slight edge over Clinton this last go around. I come back to when Bernie, out of the blue, won against Hillary in Michigan and Wisconsin during the primaries, which were both strongly favored to Hillary (much like the polls favored her before the national election). Why would that happen, being proceeded by Trumps edging in the national election, if it wasn't for anything but economic woes?

This is different from the south, who literally enslaved other people based on race, and pay reverence to those days via their statues and monuments. I could see how general racism would motivate them to vote for Trump.

Morrigan wrote:

Like this stuff only affects white people... and like the GOP and Trump actually talk about those things and offer them, instead of constantly trying to make sure they don't happen? What are you even on about?

No, it doesn't only affect whites, that's my point lol. They are common problems that affect everyone, not just select minorities. If that's what democrats continuously focus on, making shout outs to various demographics their #1 politicizing strategy while completely alienating white people, they'll loose. Nevertheless, I'm pretty optimistic this is slowly changing and getting better as more people realize this approach to politics is simply doomed to fail...this was the root of why I said I was in some ways happy Trump got elected, by forcing liberals to look in the mirror. Exhibit Randy Bryce, man trying to oust Paul Ryan.

News a bit late, but you all have probably heard that Trump officially acknowledges Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. This is a great move I think. Hopefully this will move towards lasting peace over there, but I don't believe the road will be short.

There can be no peace until the Isreali Apartheid ends.

Can you please explain how excatly Israel is an apartheid state? I live there, and haven't encountered any form of apartheid. Spitting out mottos is easier than knowing the truth apparently

_________________does it djent?

stainedclass2112 wrote:

It was a joke you darn can of fizzy sweetened liquid

BastardHead wrote:

Somebody is getting murdered but poor razz just wants his beauty sleep.

Apartheid = "apartness" in Afrikaans. Israel's governing principle of the West Bank and Gaza is called Hafrada in Hebrew. Hafrada = "separation/segregation".

In a more practical sense, apartheid is the situation when you use different laws for different peoples/races. Since the Palestinians, even Palestinian Israeli citizens, are treated under martial/military law and Israeli citizens are not, then yes, apartheid is pretty fitting for Israel.

EDIT: And this is not even touching all the international laws Israel is breaking every single day.

Because it is one. We live in a country where people who were subject to Jim crow laws and segregation are still alive and so are the people who enforced them. On what date was the switch turned and all racist feelings in peoples' hearts and minds disappeared forever? It's like mjollnir mentioned earlier with the assumption that illegal immigrants like living in hovels and hiding from the cops. Is it by choice that so many poor blacks here in Kansas City continue to live in the most run down part of town to which they were redlined in the past, or is it that there isn't a lot of economic opportunity for them as a result of their placement in this area as a result of past racism?

Morrigan is correct that race and economics are intertwined issues. This is by design. I mentioned divide and conquer style politics before and this is the example par excellence. It divides both racists from the people they should be naturally allied with politically on a class basis and it divides activists from people who will only accept one dimension of the problem and not the other.

Although the Democrats do include minorities in their platform and though their economic policies are still destructive to all save rich donors, it isn't their having minorities in the platform that is the cause of that problem, but their loyalty to their rich donors and identification with not the working but the professional class. As I've said before, that's what the New Democrat program was all about.

Can you please explain how excatly Israel is an apartheid state? I live there, and haven't encountered any form of apartheid. Spitting out mottos is easier than knowing the truth apparently

I've heard this from both Americans who lived during segregation and from South Africans who lived during apartheid; they only ever heard about something bad happening far away but never saw anything themselves. I suspect this is something they willed themselves not to see because if they did it would have said something very ugly about their way of life.

So apparently, 16 women have asked the congress to evaluate Trumps sexual harassment cases in light of the #metoo campaign. Any thoughts? They are asking him to resign, but I highly doubt he'll fall so easily.